


Ten Seconds

by persnickett



Category: Fast & Furious (2009), Fast and the Furious (2001), Fast and the Furious Series
Genre: Community: smallfandomfest, F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-06
Updated: 2011-02-06
Packaged: 2017-10-15 11:08:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/160211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persnickett/pseuds/persnickett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ten Seconds. Some from the movies, some from the dark echoing space in my head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ten Seconds

**Author's Note:**

> Written for smallfandomfest. This is from the prompt 'family', but also, as so many fics are, partially inspired from that look between the guys as Brian calls in Vince's chopper.

GO

 

Brian didn’t know what he’d been expecting but it sure as hell was never this.

 

They seriously needed to stop repeating this tableau. Only this time it was Dom standing with his hand outstretched, offering Brian the keys to his freedom here in the dusty makeshift gravel driveway they’d laid down themselves when they found this place.

 

“You don’t owe me –”

“Bullshit. Think about that too, while you’re away.”

“Dom. I can’t take –”

“You ain’t takin’ nothing. She’s on loan.”  Dom put a hand at the back of Brian’s neck and pulled until their foreheads touched. “Remember that.”

 

Then he was gone.

 

 

 

TICK

 

Brian was going to jump.

 

Without a safety line, or a helmet, onto a truck with a driver packing a shotgun.

 

Get close. Keep her steady. Needless instructions. Brian’s intention couldn’t be more clear; perched on the edge of the Supra’s door, every muscle coiled tight like a jaguar ready to spring. Mia gripped the wheel painfully tight, and prayed.

 

It wasn’t until the three of them skidded off the freeway, and she met Brian’s wide, relieved eyes over the top of the windshield, that she realized she’d never have done this for Dom.

 

She would have argued, screamed, pulled the car over; done anything she could to convince him there was another way to get to Vince, to force the semi to slow down.

 

Christ, Mia would do anything for Brian. Everything he’d ever said to her could be a lie. Everything. And still he pulled a faith from her so unquestioning it came before loyalty. She’d never help Dom risk his life like this. 

 

It was absolute, crystalline proof of one true thing. Mia had fallen hard for Brian Spilner. But not hard enough.

 

 

TICK

 

O’Conner, Brian said. _Officer_ O’Conner. He was reciting a badge number Mia thought she should memorize but she could barely hear Brian's voice over the rushing sound in her head.

 

Vince was bleeding and Mia knew, even before Brian said it, that he didn't have long. Vince was bleeding. Vince was _dying_. Brian was a cop. Mia was supposed to be a doctor, some day, and all she could do was breathlessly watch what was happening between her boyfriend and her brother.

 

Vince was bleeding out under Brian's hands, and all Brian had eyes for was Dom. He was talking in a rush, giving the dispatch everything they needed to know. He was moving through a cop's mental checklist, doing everything right. Doing everything he could to save Vince. But it couldn't be clearer that he wasn't doing it for Vince at all. His eyes kept frantically returning to Dom's face, to Dom's hands falling away from Vince's wounds and clenching into angry fists, like he couldn't tear his gaze away.

 

Gravity.

  

Dom was watching Brian without blinking. Mia had seen this look on his face before, the day their father died. Dom might be prone to temper, but this was not the same. This - the dark eyes quietly blazing black like embers - was rage.

 

Brian lied. Brian was a cop, and his name was never Spilner, and he probably wasn't from Arizona. Brian told her she was the only reason he was here. Brian told her she came first, for once.

 

Mia had no illusions that Dom would stop short of beating Brian senseless just because she pleaded, because she loved him. But she silently prayed for Dom to remember that Vince's life hung in the balance, and that whatever else he might be, right now Brian was their only hope.

 

And when that dark, searing gaze was turned on her, Mia lied too. She lied with her eyes, not daring to speak, her mouth silently forming the words "I didn't know."

 

 

 

TICK

 

She almost didn’t choose him. Dom knows it, though if anyone ever asks he will go to the very grave saying he knew where her loyalties lay. Knew beyond a doubt that blood was bond, and she might hesitate, sure, but in the end he’d known his baby sister would never choose a pretty-faced, lying, scheming fucking narc pig traitor over her only brother.

 

Mia begged Dom not to go on this job.

 

He took stock. Vince was down. Jesse was god knows where. Letty, she was hurt worse than she let on probably, and it might be a while before she spoke to him again. Leon wouldn’t even look at him, his quick eyes flicking constantly between the road and Mia, silently checking Letty’s injuries in the back seat.  Brian – forget about it. Brian was nothing now, nothing but a glint of sun off of blond hair shrinking quickly from his rearview mirror.

 

How had this happened? Even from that first day, Dom had let Brian into his house, his victory party. How, why, how _fast_ , had Brian gotten into places he shouldn’t be? Hector’s garage, Tran’s, Race Wars. Damn, under the Charger’s tarp, too. Almost, almost onto the Team for today’s job. So close. Into their family, under their skin, charming – no – _worming_ his way into their lives, like a tick. Bloodsucker. They trusted him. _Dom_ trusted him.

 

She never would have chosen Brian. She begged. Mia. Mia never begged anyone for anything. No one, except Dom.

 

Vince’s chopper thundered by overhead.

 

Mia almost didn’t choose him. Dom wondered if maybe she would have been better off.

 

 

 

TOCK

 

“Family.”

 

Brian was pleased. It had taken him six years to come up with that answer for her.

 _What do you want, Brian?_

 _Why did you let my brother go, that day?_

 _What’s_ your _code?_

 

Mia wasn’t.

“That could mean a lot of things.”

 

She should be. They were tangled together, loose and satisfied, in their bed. Brian traced a finger slowly down the satiny length of her arm.

 

But she wasn’t. She rolled over, putting her back to him. He wondered if she was hiding tears, but her voice was steady enough.

 

“You should figure it out, Brian.” He felt suddenly cold. “Then come back to us when you’ve decided.”

 

 

 

 

TICK

 

Dom was a driver. He couldn’t stand to let someone else take the wheel. That went for life just as much as cars. All his life, people were drawn to him. They took him seriously, and fell in line when he talked. All his life. And then Brian O’Conner walked into his shop.

 

Five years, and still it always seemed like Brian was picking Dom up. Saving his ass. Telling him to ‘get in’. And Dom was helpless to do anything but. A passenger. Along for the ride.

 

He always felt like that when Brian was around. Like someone else was at the wheel.

 

As he sat here bleeding into the leather seat of the Hummer, Dom looked away from Brian’s profile and let him drive them into the desert, away from the burning cars and the sound of gunfire.

 

He was alive. Things hadn’t gone exactly according to plan, but he knew what he needed to know. Dom had a Fenix to catch.

 

It wasn’t so bad, giving up the wheel for a while. He was getting tired of running.

 

 

 

TICK

 

Mia pulled the OJ out of the paper bag, then stopped to wipe at the tears trickling, uninvited, down her cheeks. Why was she crying? She wasn’t sad, she was mad. Mad as hell at one Federal Agent O’Conner.

 

Mia knew what it meant when she walked past the garage and saw him with Dom. The pair of them, voices pitched low at a conspirator’s murmur – the macho tinkering with that damn curse of a car so they wouldn’t have to meet each other’s eyes. She knew them both. They were planning something. She knew that coming back might not be part of that plan.

 

Where did Brian get off, encouraging this? Every time he showed up, Mia ended up planning a funeral. Next in line was Dom. And if Brian went with him too… Why did everyone think it was okay to just up and fucking leave her?

 

She felt a hand on her elbow, and Brian was _there_. Warm and solid and close. A little too close.

 

She could feel heat spreading from where Brian’s hand was still clutching her arm. The intense blue eyes were filled with concern. She had the briefest flash of pity – _caught between us_ – then Brian was leaning even closer, and Mia shut her eyes and let him.

 

 

 

TICK

 

Dom had been waiting for a chance to say something. That he’d figured it out. Finally. It only took five years and O’Conner on the floor with a bloody nose. Explaining. Letty. Wanting him to come home.

 

Dom wanted to say he got it. Brian’s idealistic bullshit. Why he did it all, whose side he was really on. He got that Brian actually believed that somehow, if you just did everything right, you could fix… well, anything. Even this.

 

“You still put milk and cookies out for Santa Claus?”

 

It was the best Dom could do under the circumstances.

 

 

 

TOCK

 

Brian opened his eyes and blinked.

 

He’d fallen asleep on the couch again. Mia was there, she switched off the TV and waited for something. For him. But something was off.

 

He’d fallen asleep on the couch _with Dom_. His head had dropped against the massive shoulder, and one forearm was thrown carelessly across Dom’s knee.

 

“Coming to bed?”

 

Yeah.

 

Brian stood, gently pulling free where Dom’s fingers had curled, unconscious, around his wrist. He followed on Mia’s heels, too chicken shit to look back and check whether or not Dom woke.

 

 

 

FINISH

 

Dom recognized the sound before Mia did. 

 

She’d been studying the endocrine system at the kitchen table while Dom fixed himself a sandwich, and it was the shocked clatter of Dom dropping the butter knife that made her look up. It was nearly two years since the last time, but once they heard it, there was no mistaking it. The pitch of that engine, the snarl of the blower, it had been the soundtrack of their childhood.

 

They stared at each other. Dom stood frozen by the counter until Mia spoke.

 

“Go, Dom. You have a guest.”

 

Dom let out a breath, and gave Mia’s shoulder a squeeze on his way to the screen door.

 

Like it had always been there, their father’s car sat gleaming in the graveled drive; the glare of the bright Baja sunset off the sleek black body a stark contrast with the blond hair and vivid blue eyes of its driver.

 

If there were going to be three of them in the house again, they would need to go pick up more groceries. Mia cut away half of Dom’s sandwich and sliced the crusts off the bread, as Dom pushed the door wide open in welcome, letting in the evening breeze.

 


End file.
